Had a intresting chat with WW2 flying boat pilot the other day.Amongst the storys was the ferry flight he and two others did in 3 motorised gliders in the early seventys,Compass and ADF.all the way from Poland to Australia.No thats flying!!!!

Initial nav training is I believe what the initial post was about.
A great many pilots who were allowed to use GPS in their initial training would probably :mad: themselves if it fell over in flight.
DR nav should be the primary learning followed by nav instruments (old clock style ) and then GPS.
Obviously if a GPS is fitted it should be used in flight but only after the pilot has shown profitiancy in standard nav.

Hey Maximus!!!What you bin doin white boy!!Give SID a kiss for me:O

I can testify to both the use of, and use without! :E

When I learnt to fly, starting in 1998, I was dead against GPS, wanting to stay 'traditional'. Our school drilled it into us, too.

And then came the day that I drifted to the edge of some airspace in the upper winds, off track...

Realising where I was "roughly", and the proximity to a 'large' airport with jets in the distance, I took the executive decision to to in a large field and get my bearings.

Pulling up my steed in the rough stubble field, I hopped over the fence and knocked on the door of a cottage. A elderly couple came to the door and I sheepishly said... "Umm... Can you tell me the name of this village please ?"

Spreading the chart out on their nice oak effect table, I pointed out where I thought we were. They took one look at it and said "I can't understand that!" and whipped the draw open and got out the AA UK Road Atlas!! They then bickered and bitched about finding the right page for 5 minutes, whilst I ducked!

Once I'd established my position, I climbed back aboard, and against my insticts of where I *thought* I was, flew the heading I had planned on the chart until I recognised a familiar site. Sure enough, I got home, relieved!

I bought a GPS the next day. After 2 years flying with it, I came to 'rely' on it and got lazy reading the map. And then the day came when I was following the arrow (no moving map) to Scotland around the mountains.

The arrow points in the direction, but it doesn't mean you can't drift off track and still be pointing at the arrow!

Ever since then, I went back to map-reading and find it *much* more fulfilling. I got to Land's and back in a weekend without it turned on, and also the Shetland's. :ok:

I only ever use it to show groundspeed, to help me plan in-flight if the Met man got the winds wrong. :D

The a/c I trained in didn't have it, the one I am in now does and I use it to gauge how accurate it can be just holding a heading, ie. turn it on at the half way point and see what the cross track error is.

I saw a PPL holder fly a GPS arrival into Bathurst one day in a C182RG. It was a very nice machine so I went for a look after he had left. The good old Pronav 100 was the only GPS in there!!!

So much for a RAIM check!!

May be I should have said Pre PPL.How many pilots have their charts out when old Pricilla is on the dash?
Pricilla,Queen of the Desert=Garnin 155

GPS is here stay. I totally agree that the good old NAV techniques should be taught and mastered before sitting back and letting Mr Garmin or Apollo do the work, because unfortunatley people will get into that habit, but the new technology should be incorporated into lessons. Being able to use everything that is at your fingertips can save your ass.
The bottom line is that the student has to employ self-discipline if they really want to learn properly.

My sentiments exactly DIVINE WIND.

I read an interesting article in a US magazine the other day stating that within 20 years GPS will be the primary form of navigation with radio nav aids relegated to a secondary position........I think it'll be a little earlier than 20 years.

Hollywood :cool:

This is topic which not only deserves attention in itself, but also opens up the wider field of how do we accept/integrate advancing technology into our "traditional" flight training "paradigms" and scenarios. My 2 pence worth is that it would be negligent as well as luddite to "ban" the use of GPS until some arbitrary stage (eg, post PPL), as it would be equally foolhardy to teach "stand alone" GPS Navigation. The trick is to get the blend right.....but basically I favour an introduction from day 1, as part of a "kitbag" of tools available to a pilot, which includes as well DR skills, map reading, etc, but also the basic procedures and safeguards to be observed when using self contained Nav systems.

In the USA you can teach GPS during private training but the checkride consists of navigation solely by reference to landmarks on the ground and DR. There is no provision for using the GPS during that portion of the flight test. However, recently we had a Commercial Pilot train with us for his Flight Instructor Rating and he was out on a solo flight when he got lost because he was in an airplane with no GPS for the first time. He had to land and call us to come get him!

Like the other navaids, I see the GPS as an additional skill to a more fundamental one of using the map, time & a compass. I believe it's essential that the fundamental skill be gained, after which additional skills that can include radio navaids, GPS etc can be taught.